Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
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68. To ask the Minister for Social Protection if he will revise the rules to ensure that all recipients of social protection payments receive the Christmas bonus; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [2773/17]

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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The Christmas bonus was introduced in 1980 for certain welfare schemes and was extended to long-term jobseekers in 1985. Payment of the bonus was abolished in 2009. It was re-instated at a rate of 25% by the previous Government in 2014 and was increased to 75% in 2015. I was pleased to be able to increase the rate of Bonus payable to 85% last December. This payment recognises the needs of people who are long-term financially dependent on their social welfare payment for all or most of their income, such as pensioners, people with disabilities and carers. It was paid to over 1.2 million beneficiaries in December last at a cost of circa €220 million.

The bonus paid over the last 3 years applied to all of the schemes to which it previously applied as well as the new back to work family dividend in 2015. The bonus was never paid to short-term welfare recipients including jobseekers with a duration of less than 15 months and illness benefit recipients generally. These arrangements have been continued.

Payment of a Christmas Bonus in December 2017 will be considered later this year. It should be noted that payment to those weekly welfare recipients who have not historically received a Bonus would cost in the region of €33 million (based on 2016 data).